An Armenian Christian serving a 10-year prison sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison has written a letter protesting against his “unfair” imprisonment on “unfounded” charges, following the rejection of his second application for a retrial.

Hakop Gochumyan, 36, has been in prison since August 2023, when he and his wife Elisa, who is the Iranian-Armenian daughter of a renowned former church leader, were arrested while holidaying in Tehran.

Hakop was sentenced in February 2024 and his appeal was rejected in June 2024.

In his letter, which was published earlier today by CSW, Hakop bemoaned that Iran’s Supreme Court had rejected his two applications for a retrial – in February and April 2025 – and said the court had failed to “acknowledge the fact that the charges were fabricated”.

He added that the charges against him were “completely unfair and false” and that the indictment contained “fictitious statements”.

Article18 reported previously how, according to an informed source, Hakop’s conviction was based only on his possession of seven Persian-language New Testaments and having visited two Armenian churches and a Persian-language house-church while on holiday.

Hakop said in his letter that he had been imprisoned for “the unfounded reason of preaching and teaching Christianity”, and that the investigation by Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) agents was carried out “with gross violations of human rights”, including denial of access to a lawyer and threats to the lives of his family members. 

“The prison security staff in every way prevented me meeting with my lawyer – not allowing a normal conversation and unauthorisedly recording our conversations, without the right to do so, and they also prevented me meeting with the staff of the Armenian embassy,” he said.

Hakop said he had also been subjected to “psychological violence”, with intelligence agents “without a drop of shame” confessing to the murder of Iranian-Armenian church leader Haik Hovsepian, “describing it in detail and saying they would kill me in the same way”.

CSW’s Meryvn Thomas said he was “deeply concerned” at Hakop’s imprisonment “on excessive and completely unfounded charges, following violations of rights guaranteed in Iran’s constitution and in international human rights legislation to which it is party”. 

“We are particularly appalled at the severe psychological cruelty inflicted on him by MOIS officers, who threatened to re-enact their brutal murder of Bishop Hovsepian,” he added. “We are also dismayed by the unacceptable infringements on his right to access legal counsel, and by successive rejections of his appeals despite the absence of due process in the legal proceedings that resulted in his conviction.” 

Mr Thomas called for Hakop’s “immediate and unconditional release”, and urged the international community – and “particularly the government of Armenia” – to hold the Iranian authorities to account “not only for this miscarriage of justice, but also for their continuing mistreatment of countless other prisoners of conscience”.